Customer Reviews

Crime Beat: A Decade of Covering Cops and Killers

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Whoever said truth was stranger than fiction might have been referring to bestselling author Connelly's first foray into non-fiction, Crime Beat. While all of us recognize his name thanks to such list toppers as The Lincoln Lawyer, Chasing the Dime and Blood Work, few may know that before writing novels he was a crime reporter, assigned to homicides.

Crime Beat is a collection of the pieces he wrote during that time and are, if you can believe it, often even more chilling than his fictional tales. Admittedly, he found inspiration for many of his novels in his reporting days yet the pieces included in Crime Beat are even more compelling as they are related in the voices of the victims, their families, and the detectives who handled the cases.

And, what voices they are! Len Cariou captures with his stage trained elocution and knife sharp diction. This Tony winner gives a first rate performance as the initial narrator explaining how Connelly came to be fascinated by police work.

The second voice we hear is that of actress Nancy McKeon who grips listeners with her reading of the heartbreak of a victim's family. Many audio edition fans will remember her narration of Faye Kellerman's Street Dreams.

Actor/director Carl Franklin whose films as a director include Devil A Blue Dress and One True Thing rounds out this stellar trio, reading with cool assurance.

An added bonus is an introduction by Connelly. As for the actual crimes? Listening is believing and frightening, indeed, ranging from a psychopathic mass murderer who posed as a fashion photographer to a husband who hired someone to beat his wife to death.

True crime enthusiasts will be enthralled.

- Gail Cooke